(UN News)* —The UN Secretary-General on Thursday [] urged the Security Council to act decisively to establish international guardrails for artificial intelligence (AI), warning that delays could heighten risks to global peace and security.
UNMAS/Martine Perret | Advances in artificial intelligence offer potential to detect landmines and unexploded ordnance, but misuse of this technology could pose significant risks to society.
Addressing ministers and ambassadors, António Guterres warned that rapid developments in AI are outpacing humanity’s ability to govern it, raising important questions about accountability, equality, safety and human oversight in decision-making.
RIYADH & HYDERABAD, Dec 17 2024 (IPS)* – The 16th meeting of the Conference of the Parties to the UN Convention to Combat Desertification (UNCCD COP 16) concluded early hours of Saturday with a renewed focus on building drought resilience globally.
COP16 in Riyadh launched a drought resilience initiative, which also saw contributions of over USD 12 billion for land restoration and drought resilience. Credit: IISD/ENB
However, the COP also failed to agree on bringing a legally binding drought protocol.
(UN News)* — Nearly one million Gazans risk spending winter without adequate shelter as UN agencies struggle to provide cold weather assistance, amid ongoing Israeli bombardment, repeated evacuation orders and restrictions on aid deliveries, they warned on Wednesday [].
(UN News)* —Tropical Cyclone Chido struck northern Mozambique over the weekend, bringing torrential rains and powerful winds that caused devastation for communities in Cabo Delgado province.
Current assessments show the storm destroyed or damaged over 35,000 homes, displaced thousands of families, and impacted more than 90,000 children, the UN Children’s Fund (UNICEF) said on Tuesday [].
According to the latest situation report, at least 174,000 people have been impacted overall but numbers may increase as assessments continue.
MADRID, Dec 17 2024 (IPS)* – Planet Earth is drying up, relentlessly. Over three-quarters of all lands have become permanently drier in the last three decades. This is not jut a statistic but a stark scientific fact. But while such an ‘existential crisis’ affects nearly every region, guess where -and who- are the most hit?
“Without concerted efforts, billions face a future marked by hunger, displacement, and economic decline.” Credit: Desmond Brown/IPS
They are the 1.35 billion humans living in Asia’s drylands, that’s more than half the global total. And they are the 620 millions people who inhabit Africa’s drylands, e.g. nearly half of the continent’s population.
KUALA LUMPUR, Malaysia, Dec 17 2024 (IPS)* –– The new geopolitics after the first Cold War undermines peace, sustainability, and human development. Hegemonic priorities continue to threaten humanity’s well-being and prospects for progress.
Jomo Kwame Sundaram
End of first Cold War The end of the first Cold War has been interpreted in various ways, most commonly as a US triumph.
Francis Fukuyama famously proclaimed the ‘end of history’ with the victory of capitalism and liberal democracy.
With the collapse of the Soviet Union and allied regimes, the US seemed unchallenged and unchallengeable in the new ‘unipolar’ world. The influential US journal Foreign Affairs termed ensuing US foreign policy ‘sovereigntist’.
(UN News)* —Ongoing military operations by Israeli forces in Gaza continue to cause devastation for civilians trying to escape the fighting, with mounting casualties and a critical lack of humanitarian aid for the desperate population.
16 December 2024 — Thousands of families in Gaza are struggling as the winter season brings heavy rains, causing floods in their tents and exposing them to the cold and wind.
Only 23 per cent of Gaza’s shelter needs have been met this autumn, leaving nearly one million Palestinians vulnerable to exposure during the harsh winter months, according to the Norwegian Refugee Council-led Shelter Cluster in Palestine.
The Shelter Cluster estimated in September that 2,000 trucks of tents or 200 trucks of sealing-off kits were urgently needed to provide basic winter protection for 1.13 million displaced Palestinians in Gaza. By late November, only 285,000 displaced people had received essential shelter materials.
(UN News)* — Central African nations continue to grapple with multidimensional crises, including security threats, extreme weather events and geopolitical tensions, a senior UN official said on Friday [], calling for renewed solidarity with nations in the region.
Abdou Abarry, UN Special Representative for Central Africa, told ambassadors in the Security Council that disasters and extreme weather events displaced more than three million people in the region this year alone.
This has worsened an already fragile socio-economic situation and underscored the need for stronger climate action.
SAN SALVADOR, Dec 10 2024 (IPS)* –Metal mining has a renewed momentum in Central America, encouraged by populist rulers who, in order to soften environmental damage, claim they can develop it in harmony with nature, which is hard to believe. | En español
Representatives of a dozen environmental organisations, united in the Roundtable Against Metal Mining in El Salvador, speak out against Salvadoran president Nayib Bukele’s goal to reopen this industry, banned by law since 2017. Credit: Roundtable Against Metal Mining in El Salvador
Thus, they seek to win the approval of a majority that seems to follow them blindly, but not environmentalists or other social sectors, activists told IPS.
HUMAN WRONGS WATCH 